Struggling to shed my "Imperial gaze" in the midst of American Empire

Contentment

My son is upstairs taking a morning nap in his crib. I’ve learned that there’s a real art to laying down a sleeping baby without waking him up, at least with Samuel anyway. It’s kind of funny but I feel like I’ve really accomplished something when I’m successful at it. One of the challenges of it, admittedly, is simply that it’s hard to want to lay him down. As we were lounging on the couch after breakfast this morning, I knew he was tired and I was able to coax him to sleep. Once he was peacefully resting in my arms and as I gazed out the front windows with the sun shining outside, I was fully aware and attending to, in the moment, my knowledge of utter contentment. I could say without reservation that there was nothing- nothing– that I would rather be doing at the moment than holding my peacefully sleeping son and drinking fully of the deep reservoir of love that I knew just then- my overhwhelming love for him, his love for me, and the love of my heavenly Father that is the wellspring of it all.